


i don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

by Alice_Prongs



Series: Jily One-Shots [25]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Jilytober 2019, Mutual Pining, Sexual Tension, confession of feelings, i'm finally posting this when it should have been up in the beginning of the month, the shame of a jily shipper, they're locked up together, very minor angst though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 05:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21248036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_Prongs/pseuds/Alice_Prongs
Summary: Lily didn’t know exactly how she had ended up here, but she knew she could blame Marlene for it.James’s chest was pressed up to hers, their legs just short of intertwined and his face hovering right above hers because of their height difference. She could feel his body heat in the tight room and the dark allowed Lily to blush without him noticing it. Still, they were too close together and even though she couldn’t see his face or his body, she could imagine how it looked pressed up against her quite well.She’d dreamed about it often enough.orjames and lily are locked up together in a broom closet, and there's a lot of unspoken feelings between them.





	i don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SO LATE FOR JILYTOBER  
i mean, it's not over but i had PLANS (as can be seen by the fact i posted the first fic on the 1st) and i didn't post anything. this is my redemption. sorry for promising to participate on jilytober and then... not do it at all. anne with an e and shirbert DISTRACTED ME (but jily still is and forever will be my number one). i hope you guys enjoy this fic, even though i'm a terrible human being and didn't post it when i should have. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK
> 
> title is from taylor swift's cruel summer because i'm obsessed with this album

Lily didn’t know exactly how she had ended up here, but she knew she could blame Marlene for it.

James’s chest was pressed up to hers, their legs just short of intertwined and his face hovering right above hers because of their height difference. She could feel his body heat in the tight room and the dark allowed Lily to blush without him noticing it. Still, they were too close together and even though she couldn’t _see_ his face or his body, she could _imagine_ how it looked pressed up against her quite well.

She’d dreamed about it often enough.

They had been stuck in here for at least twenty minutes, and it was starting to get uncomfortable. She was practically enclosed by his body. He had had to raise his hands to rest on the door on both sides of her head because of the lack of space and it was an oddly intimate position she was trying hard not to think about. Her own hands were trapped between their chests because there was nowhere else to put them.

James shifted slightly and the motion made his entire front rub against hers. It felt like he was even closer now. Lily threw her head back against the wall in defeat. She wanted to scream. She didn’t think she’d be leaving this closet alive.

Or sane.

Suddenly, Lily felt him leaning in. She widened her eyes in surprise and was about to try to push him away because _what did he think he was doing_, when James whispered next to her ear, “Evans,” and she hated herself for the shiver that ran through her body. She closed her eyes instinctively to try to pull herself together. It didn’t really work.

“What?” she hissed, trying not to dwell on why she needed to stay away from him – or why she didn’t want to.

“Have you been avoiding me?” James asked in a low voice, his warm breath brushing against her neck.

Lily froze. She briefly considered giving up and just bolting out of the closet, consequences be damned. It certainly sounded like a better alternative than staying in here and having _this_ conversation.

It hadn’t been that long since James and Lily had started being civil to each other. It had been even less since Lily had started seeing him as a friend. The only problem was that, as she spent more time with him, she started to realize how much she had misjudged him over the years. And that had led her to start noticing how attractive he was.

(Not that she didn’t _know_ already. She was pretty sure everyone in Hogwarts knew that James Potter was handsome, but she was able to ignore it before. Now, it was the only thing she could think about whenever he was around her.)

And Lily just couldn’t deal with it.

It was too much talking to him, laughing at his jokes, sitting together at meals like old friends at the same time that she couldn’t stop _seeing_ how his hazel eyes sparkled whenever he talked about Quidditch. Or how his lips would twitch up just slightly as he smiled fondly at his friends whenever they weren’t looking, in a way that made him look so proud of them. Or how his arms would flex when he rubbed his eyes tiredly whenever they stayed up late trying to finish up their work as Heads.

Too much noticing all of it and being around him and having to hold in all the feelings he was causing to her body and her mind and her heart. Too much not being able to say anything or else she’d ruin their hard-earned friendship. Too much having to hold it all in because he had been in love with her once, but he wasn’t anymore, and she was not going to put him through all this embarrassment after having rejected him so harshly before.

So, yes, she _was _avoiding him, but he didn’t need to know that. He especially didn’t need to know _why _she was doing it.

“What are you talking about?” she whispered back, voice tight. He was still too close to her, and she was still pressed up against a door, but she really wished the ground would just open up and swallow her right about now.

“I’m talking about how you’ve practically ran away from me every time I’ve come near you in the past two weeks.” He sounded almost hurt by it, and it gave her a pang in her chest.

Lily really wanted to kill Marlene for putting her through this.

“I’m not avoiding you, James.”

“Did I do something?” he insisted, ignoring her half-hearted lie. Lily sighed.

It wasn’t fair of her to make him think he was guilty of something when, really, it wasn’t his fault that he had an attractive face and body and that he was all-around a wonderful person she was possibly developing for and who, incidently, she couldn’t keep herself together around. “No, you didn’t do anything,” she sighed.

“Then why the bloody hell are you avoiding me?” he sounded angrier, his tone rising in frustration. Lily acted on complete impulse.

She pushed herself closer to him and put her hand over his mouth to shut him up. Even in the dark, she could see his eyes widen through the faint light pouring in from the sides of the door.

“Do you _want _them to find us?” she whisper-yelled, a bit mortified by what she had just done, but not letting it stop her from chastising him.

James didn’t move. Lily stepped back, taking her hand off his mouth and blushing profusely. He blinked and shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice low once again.

“It’s fine.”

They spent a few more minutes in silence. It was the most awkward situation she had ever been in. “Lily,” he said, finally. She looked up at him hesitantly. “Can you please tell me why you’re avoiding me?”

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “James, I’m not…”

“Yes, you _are_. Stop trying to deny it. I’m not stupid. I just want to know why.”

She’d love to tell him, just so she wouldn’t have to listen to the sad tone in his voice. It was a shame she couldn’t.

“James, I’m sorry, okay? It’s nothing.”

He huffed, frustrated. “Are you kidding me? I know you, and if you’re avoiding me there’s a reason.”

Lily didn’t reply, her cheeks heating up. She couldn’t ever say to him that the reason she was doing all of this was because she couldn’t breathe right when he was too close to her and she saw the flecks of green in his eyes behind his glasses’ lenses. Or that all that she thought about when he sat in front of her in Transfiguration was to sink her hands in his messy hair and find out if it was as silky as it looked. Or that seeing him take his shirt off that one time after Quidditch practice had given her nights of restless sleep for more than one week straight because of the dirty dreams she would have whenever she closed her eyes.

He sighed. “Okay, then, Evans,” he whispered in such a low tone that she could barely hear it, even alone in that broom closet. “I’m sorry, though, for whatever it was I did. Sorry I ruined it all.”

Lily felt like she was about to cry.

“James…” she started, and then stopped, not knowing what she could say.

He moved, uncertainly, and his body was rubbing against hers and, bloody hell, she would _definitely_ not come out sane of this one.

“I think we should get out of here,” he said, in a hard voice that she knew was concealing his hurt.

It was terrible how well she knew him by now that she was able to figure this out without even being able to see his face.

“What if Sirius or Marlene find us?” she whispered softly.

“What if they do? We can’t stay in here forever.”

“James…”

“Look, if you’re going to keep doing this, I’m not going to stay here and go through it, okay?” He sounded angry now, and Lily could feel tears coming into her eyes. “I don’t know what I did to you, Evans, and I’m sorry, but you could at least give me an answer.”

Lily opened her mouth, but no words came out. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.

“I thought I deserved at least that,” James muttered, at last, sounding defeated in a way she had never heard before. Merlin, she had to do something to fix this. Was she a bloody Gryffindor or not? As she felt him lean away from her, Lily was done.

She’d throw all caution to the wind and screw herself over ten times if it meant she’d never have to hear James Potter sounding hurt again.

“Bloody hell, Potter, you didn’t do _anything_, okay?” she groaned and, before she could stop herself, she uttered, “You’re just too frustrating.”

He stopped. “What?”

She cursed her stupid mouth. “Nothing,” she whispered, shrinking into herself.

He grabbed her waist and her whole being shivered. “What are you on about, Evans?” She could feel his warmth radiating to her body as he leaned in closer to her. They were practically sharing the same breath. Her entire body had grown numb and his hands on her waist were the only place she was aware of.

“Lily, please,” he whispered when she didn’t say anything else.

And that was all it took. She couldn’t hold in her words anymore.

“You’re too attractive to think straight, you idiot, and having you acting nice to me and being friends and Heads together is too much for me to handle and since your whole crush on me is definitely long gone, I’m just left here acting like an idiot and having to avoid you because otherwise I’d probably—”

Then he kissed her.

James Potter was kissing her. In a broom closet.

_Bloody hell_, she couldn’t believe this was happening.

Lily kissed him back. The minimal distance that still existed between them was eliminated immediately. He pressed her up against the door, his hands roaming her waist as hers went up his arms, shoulders, neck and then sunk in his hair, finally. She pulled on the strands. They were even softer than she had imagined. His hands tightened on her hips as he let out a groan against her mouth. They separated with heaving breaths when lack of air became an issue.

James chuckled, lips still pressed to hers. “You’re an idiot, Evans,” he whispered against her lips. She pushed him away as well as she could in the cramped space, offended.

“Excuse me?”

“How could I ever get over you, Lily Evans?” he said, still laughing. She slapped him on the shoulder as he pressed kisses all over her face. “I’ve been bloody in love with you for years,” he whispered, almost reverently, and she shivered again.

She kissed him again, because it felt like the only thing she was capable of doing at that moment. He kissed her back without hesitating, his tongue licking at her lips, asking for entrance. She granted it without hesitation and soon they were kissing even more fervently, tongues tangling together.

And then the door opened behind them and they both tumbled out in a mess of limbs. Lily groaned from underneath James’s body (and not in the good way). When she looked up, James was looking down at her with worry in his eyes, one of his hands running through her hair.

“You okay?” he asked. She nodded in response, a smile coming onto her lips involuntarily. She saw the tension leave his shoulders at her answer. Seeing how he had been truly worried about her made her fall for him even more.

Then her eyes traveled above his head and found Sirius and Marlene hovering there, smiling mischievously at them. Lily groaned. James followed her gaze and huffed, disentangling himself from her so he could stand up.

“Hello there, lovebirds,” Sirius said once James had helped her get up.

“We see that our plan worked, then,” Marlene continued, with the same smile.

James hadn’t let go of her hand.

He squinted at the two of them in irritation, then shrugged. “You know what, I can’t even bring myself to be mad at the both of you,” James said, looking down at her with a small smile dancing on his lips.

Lily tightened her grip on his hand. She wasn’t mad either.


End file.
